IT's answer to Hunter Thompson, John McAfee has thrown his hat into the ring as president.

After all in a race in which Donald Trump is taken seriously, it is possible that McAfee could do rather well.

Writing in Digitrends McAffee said that it would not be "politics as usual."

"Our government is in a dysfunctional state. It is also illiterate when it comes to technology. Technology is not a tool that should be used for a government to invade our privacy. Technology should not be the scapegoat when we fail to protect our digital assets and tools of commerce. These are matters of priorities," he said.

McAfree said that the US was unprepared for a cyberwar that has already begun and is about powerful people and powerful conglomerates of corporations and lobby groups.

"Americans have been brought to their knees by this Orwellian machine. If you think you are not a subject or it does not affect you, look at our debt. Our future has been pre-spent and sold. We should all be outraged, and many are," he wrote.

He is calling his party the Cyber Party and he wants people to demand more from the government – honesty and freedom.

He said he is confident he can win. Face it he is not the first US politician who was fled questioning on a murder charge. Aaron Burr killed his political rival Alexander Hamilton in duel and prostitutes and drug accusations appear to come with the job.

A new global trade pact that removes tariffs on more than 200 bits of IT gear mean cheaper prices around the world.

The tentative deal, struck on Friday at a World Trade Organisation meeting in Geneva, affects a wide variety of devices ranging from smartphones, routers, and ink cartridges to video game consoles and telecommunications satellites.

The import duties will begin to be phased out next year, and removed within three years, the European Commission said. The new deal extends the 1996 Information Technology Pact that removed customs duties on IT gear such as computers, telephones, digital cameras and their parts.

Cecilia Malmström, EU Trade Commissioner, said the deal will cut costs for consumers and business—in particular for smaller firms, which have been hit especially hard by excessive tariffs in the past.

Dubbed the ITA Expansion the deal is being touted as great news workers and businesses that design, make, and export technology and information products.

The US yearly exports $100 billion worth of technology covered by the expanded product list.

With an agreement in place about what gear will be covered, representatives from the joining countries will work out details of the plan at the WTO's 10th Ministerial Conference in Nairobi this December. The WTO hopes the deal will be finalized there, a spokesman said.

The deal will cover WTO members involved in the negotiations included the EU and its 28 countries.

Evi Nemeth, whose work on Unix and Linux, helped develop the languages behind the modern data bases is missing at sea and presumed dead.

Nemeth, 73, worked with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to established an IT scholarship programme, but is better known for her books on Unix and Linux.

Nemeth was among seven people cruising around New Zealand on an 85-year-old schooner yacht called the Nina. After a big storm, the boat was reported missing. New Zealand authorities spent days searching and have officially have called off rescue efforts. She was a retired professor from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an experienced sailor.

Besides working with Woz and her books, she also worked on some of the first systems that measure Internet traffic, and organised an international curriculum to train future Internet engineers

An FBI investigation into last year's cyber attack on Nasdaq OMX Group has found that security was surprisingly.

The Feds are focused on Nasdaq's Directors Desk collaboration software for corporate boards, where the breach occurred. This is the Web-based software is used by directors to share confidential information and to collaborate on projects.

While the Nasdaq's basic computer architecture was sound, which kept its trading systems safe from the hackers, investigators were surprised to find some computers with out-of-date software, misconfigured firewalls and uninstalled security patches that could have fixed known "bugs" that hackers could exploit. There were versions of Microsoft Corp's Windows 2003 Server operating system which had not been updated.

Nasdaq has officially defended its security practices and pointed out that no data was compromised by the cyber attack, which was detected in October 2010.

Analyst outfit Forrester is shocked that more than 41 per cent of companies ban employees using Apple toys on their networks. This appears to be the result of a new Forrester survey of IT executives at North American and European companies which says that evil IT management will not allow employee-owned Macs access to any company resources, even Web-based e-mail.

Forrester asked 590 IT executives and technology decision-makers if employee-owned Macs are granted access to resources like Web-based e-mail, hosted applications and virtual desktops, internal networks, and native e-mail applications said they would not let an Apple gismo have any access at all. The report is pro-Apple and claims that companies are unfairly prejudiced against the Mac, it ignores the fact that a third of companies block access from any employee-owned computer or device.

Forrester says that since “People are bringing Macs to Work—It’s time to repeal prohibition.” The logic is of course that when people start bringing in rabid dogs to work companies should also set up a petting park. Forrester analyst David Johnson wines that it is all because of brainwashing from Microsoft which has had two decades of Microsoft management traditions are either prohibiting Macs on the company network or limiting their support to executives only.

Forrester notes that Macs pose technology challenges to IT shops accustomed to Windows. But these challenges can be overcome, and giving employees more choice will improve productivity, Forrester says Johnson made the claim that employees who seek out new technologies tend to be more productive and serve customers more effectively. Macs today are being freewheeled into the office by executives, top sales reps, and other workaholics, he writes. So therefore they must be good.

What Johnson failed to point out in his pro-Apple sales pitch was that there is a damn fine reason why companies keep Apple toys off their networks. Firstly Apple networking has always been inferior to any other system. Apple toys are easy to hack and notoriously bad at correcting security flaws which means that a security department has an hope hole on their network for a long time. Secondly Apple gear does not play very well with other gear, which means that IT departments have to spend a fortune setting up new kit so the Apple fanboys in their company can listen to Coldplay.

Lastly there is a fundamental flaw in allowing an outside company onto your network which runs an walled garden of information and networking systems that you do not control. Rather than allowing “more choice” on the network, Apple gear is exclusive.

Fears that the struggling financial industry might cut back on IT workers are proving unfounded. According IT recruitment report from specialist financial services recruiter, McGregor Boyall, hiring for both contract and permanent roles has remained steady when compared with the first quarter of 2011.

Volumes are, unsurprisingly still significantly down on the boom times of 2010 but things could be a lot worse.Laurie Boyall, Managing Director at McGregor Boyall said: “Our findings indicate that the market has now evened out in terms of recovery and that the rapid growth we saw last year has stabilised.”

The results showed that the highest number of vacancies were within risk, representing 16% of all IT requirements received. The report also revealed that 40% of all requirements were within development, with a particular need for those with Java and C# experience.

Boyall added that it was fairly likely that more regulatory reform will take place. This will likely to see financial institutions having to rethink some of their IT strategies and will inevitably lead to a renewed spike in the demand for IT specialists – particularly contractors – to work on large-scale projects.

Aussie government workers are in hot water after they formed a company to bid for an IT contract and awarded it to themselves.

The Victorian government's IT agency is being investigated by Coppers after an audit revealed that the public servants awarded themselves a contract that led to work worth $1.5 million. Six contractors and staff have been fired and there is an organisation-wide review of CenITex, the body charged with centralising public sector technology services.

Two CenITex project managers used a two-day-old shelf company to bid for a tender in May last year. They then sat in on the selection panel, then awarded themselves the contract. They were able to underbid other tenderers, including IBM. They won a contract to deliver ''hosting services'' for $145,000, but since then pocketed $1.5 million for work they contracted to others.

A government audit found that CenITex failed to vet the shelf company's credentials. Police were asked by CenITex to investigate two staff members for possible fraud and obtaining secret commissions.

The problem is that that the former staff told the cops that they had declared their interest in the company, and had approval from higher levels of management for the work to be awarded to their company. This could get very messy.

Analysts at Ovum have added up the numbers and divided by their shoe size and worked out that the IT services market suffered a severe hit in the second quarter of 2011. Ovum beancounters say that the value of new contract signings falling to its lowest level in more than eight years.

The analyst states that the total contract value (TCV) of deals announced in Q2 2011 was just $19 billion, down 40 per cent on the same period last year and the lowest quarterly figure since Q1 2003. Ovum found that the number of deals recorded also slumped for the fourth consecutive quarter, to just 384. Not only was this down more than 20 per cent on the number tracked during the second quarter of 2010, but it was also the lowest number of deals recorded by Ovum in a single quarter since Q4 2007.

Ed Thomas, Ovum analyst and author of the report said that after a disappointing start to the year, things went from bad to worse in the second quarter of 2011 with this very weak performance in contract signings. He said that there was a lack of large deals on offer was a major contributing factor, combined with the on-going lack of demand from private sector firms, particularly in the US.

“In previous quarters, the buoyancy of the public sector outsourcing market has gone some way toward offsetting the lacklustre returns from enterprise clients. However, on this occasion government spending on IT services projects also took a hit, with a notable lack of large-scale projects on offer,” Thomas added.

IT types who want to make piles of dosh should brush up on skills that have nothing to do with the computer, according to a new report. CWJobs.co.uk finds that 76 per cent of people feel a lack of soft skills, such as people management and business acumen, is preventing them and their peers from taking board level roles.

Specialist IT recruitment website CWJobs conducted research among over 1,000 jobseekers exploring requisite skills in the IT sector, and found that 93 per cent think that they would be more valuable to businesses if they possessed better soft skills. A further 86 per cent feel their employment prospects would be improved if they demonstrated soft skills when job hunting. While many IT professionals may feel confident applying their technical knowledge and experience at work, people management followed by business and financial awareness, are the skills that they feel they’re lacking the most.

Martin Dangerfield, Talent Acquisition Manager at Symantec stated that although it’s important for IT professionals to have strong security skills, “consumer facing engagement is the most important skill”, highlighting the importance of soft skills in addition to the necessary technical skills. In other words IT people have to know how to deal with customers better and stop calling them names and swearing at them.

Richard Nott, Website Director at CWJobs said that IT department plays a crucial role in the efficiency and effectiveness of a business. IT pros need to be equipped with the skills needed to progress to a board level role within an organisation.

His research also found that 84 per cent of IT pros don’t think employers give them enough training in soft skills, which is something senior managers and HR departments need to address.

Male IT workers are more likely to be fat and not get enough sex, according to a new survey compiled by the Men's Health Network and Cephalon.

Those who work non-traditional hours including IT professionals working overnight shifts, report that these shifts can negatively impact their health.

More than 79 per cent of shift workers believe that they are negatively impacted by their shift work and voiced daily concern over their energy level and weight. A third felt that work was stuffing up their sex lives.

The average shift worker does not get a meal with their family in two weeks or exercised in 24 days.

The survey results suggested an impact of shift work on people's work productivity, with one in three shift workers reporting having missed work altogether at least once in the past year because they were too tired.

More than half of IT shift workers reported feeling frustrated and drained in the last week, with many others reporting irritability (42%), anxiety (36%) and anger (32%). Well a lack of sex does that.